SofaBatonU2 Universal Remote Control with Smart App, Customizable Macro Button, All in one Remote Control for TVs/DVD//Blu-ray/STB/Projector, Works with Infrared & Bluetooth Devices

This is an awesome universal remote, especially for the price. The bad reviews are from people who thought it would be a 60 second set-up, or just refused to learn how it works. It actually has an almost genius way of customizing the controls. This remote has basically no limits on how detailed you want to customize it... You can literally customize every single button to do anything you want. Add in it's ability to replace remotes that use Bluetooth instead of IR signals (like an Amazon Firestick remote) makes it perfect. You can also set any button to be a macro button (one press sends a command to multiple devices). With just the device model number it can be programmed to be that devices remote... and you can then further customize it by changing &/or reassigning any button to a different function. The phone companion app makes the initial set-up & custom programming SO MUCH EASIER!!! It's only downside is it doesn't have the voice control feature of the Amazon Firestick remote. But you can always just use your FS remote for those occasions you need voice control. I replaced 6 remotes with this one (Smart TV, HDMI Receiver, Cable Box, Amazon Firestick, BlueRay/DVD Player, PS5 Media Remote). It took about an hour to completely set-up & fully customize it. The first 30 mins were spent learning how to customize it to it's full capability... That's the part I'm guessing the people who left bad reviews refused to attempt to learn. Sorry, but they were just too lazy to learn how it works & how awesome it can be!!

This product is a great replacement for our old Harmony remote. Some of the Harmony buttons no longer work and it needed to be recharged constantly. The Sofabaton has worked out great. Pretty easy to set up with just as much functionality as our old Harmony. Also, has a nice feel to it and obviously good quality.

I have the U2 for a few days now. I previously had the Logitech harmony which I really liked.The good; 1. comfortable to hold 2. Can program macros for one button turn on for different component configurations.The bad; 1. Programing is not intuitive, youtube videos were helpful to figure out how to do it. 2. No help button, on the harmony if a macro didn’t do what it was suppose it would walk through it step by step to fix it. 3. Biggest complaint, no back lighting on the keys. It makes it very frustrating to use at night,Bottom line , its a good remote and a good price but not as good as the harmony. Maybe there will be a U3 that corrects the deficiencies.

I bought the Sofabaton U2 Universal Remote about 3 weeks ago and have been using it since then. The reason I bought it is because I have a Harmony 650 universal remote for about 5 years and it is buggy to use. In particular the Harmony 650 is buggy to use with my ViewTV Digital converter box with my J-Tech HDMI wireless extender. The setup is I have my ViewTV Digital converter box on the 2nd floor of my house (to get better free TV reception) and I have put an TV antenna in the 2nd floor of my house, the TV is in the den which is on the 1st floor of my house, hence I have to use a J-Tech HDMI wireless extender to get the TV signal from my ViewTV Digital converter box to my Samsung TV. The J-Tech HDMI wireless extender comes with an infrared pickup which you can attach to the J-Tech HDMI transceiver in the den, this then transmits the IR signal from the universal remote to the J-Tech HDMI transceiver on the 2nd floor and attached to this J-Tech HDMI transceiver on the 2nd floor is a IR transmitter which flashes the IR signal from the universal remote on the 1st floor to my ViewTV Digital TV converter box on the 2nd floor. This setup allows me to get great TV reception (2nd floor) and to control which TV channel I want to see from the comfort of my couch in the den with the universal remote. The issue I have with the Harmony 650 is that it doesn't control the ViewTV Digital TV converter box reliably. For example the Harmony 650 will skip channels when pressing the next up TV channel button, down TV channel button on the Harmony 650 will not skip channels but the up TV channel button will skip the next channel for some reason. The pain this creates when using the Harmony 650 is that when I am channel flipping I have to skip a channel when going up and then back down to the correct channel I want to see, which is aggravating. Also for some reason when I use the Harmony 650 and enter the channel number directly, when I press any channel number on the Harmony 650 remote the number will be sent twice, which means if I press 5 for example the ViewTV Digital TV converter box will think I pressed 55, which means I have to use the up and down buttons to get to the correct channel. Finally the Harmony 650 is buggy on the preprogrammed buttons, so for TV I have programmed the TV to turn on the Samsung TV, ViewTV Digital TV and my Sony sound amplifier which connects to the speakers. Probably about 70% of the time the Harmony 650 universal remote pre-program TV button will turn on/off all the units correctly, however about 30% of the time it will leave one of the units on or off, this unsyncs all of the units from being on and off. When the units on/off are unsynchronized, the Harmony 650 allows you to select invidual units and then you can turn on/off that individual unit. When you go to the individual unit on the Harmony 650, one has to exit, then hit devices, then select the unit and then turn on/off the unit, which requires a minimum of 4 key presses to just turn on/off an individual unit. Also if for instance you are trying to watch TV and press the TV button and everything turns on except for the ViewTV Digital TV then you have to do the 4 key presses to turn on the ViewTV, however after on the Harmony 650 you have to then press Activities, press Watch TV and when you press Watch TV you have to cover the infrared transmitter of the Harmony 650 or it will turn off everything, so this is an additional 2 key presses plus the inconvenience and the time to cover the Harmony 650 infrared transmitter just so you can turn on everything and flip through the TV channels. If you have a simple entertainment setup, then the Harmony 650 is fine, if you have a complicated one then using the Harmony 650 is painful, it can be done but not without learning to dance with your remote.This is why I bought the Sofabaton U2, I hesitated to buy the Sofabaton because the reviews tend to be all over the map, but because it was relatively inexpensive as compared to the Harmony 650 I said what the heck and bought it. Long story short, I love the Sofabaton U2, it is easy to use and setup (once you learn how to set it up) and it doesn't mess up as much as the Harmony 650, about 85% of the time all the units are synchronized with being on/off and the last 15% the Sofabaton U2 easily goes to the individual unit which then you turn it on/off and then you easily go back to the main macro buttons to continue watching TV without having to cover the infrared transmitter when it messes up when you are turning on the TV.The criticism of poor documentation is true, especially how to program the macro buttons. The instructions which come with the Sofabaton U2 do not mention macro button programing at all and the video they point to in the instructions is extremely basic and doesn't mention how to program the macro buttons. I had to watch several Youtube videos, none of which were good in informing the user how/why to program the macro buttons on the Sofabaton U2, but after watching the Youtube vides and experimenting around with programing the Sofabaton U2 macro buttons for sevral hours, I finally understood how to program the macro buttons on the Sofabaton U2. Once you go through the process of programing the macro buttons on the Sofabaton U2 and use the Sofabaton U2, it all makes sense and then is easy and intuitive. But to get to the point of understanding how to program and use the Sofabaton U2, IMO will take most users, like me several hours and several videos. Once going through the process of using and programming the Sofabaton U2, I am sure a user manual as well as a good training video if done correctly could get a new user up to speed quickly in minutes rather than hours. The one suggestion I have is to program your main macro interface on the unit with the fewest programmed buttons on the Sofabaton U2, for me I have an old Sony audio amplifier so I programmed the main macro on this interface such that I would have the maximum number of buttons I could program for custom use. The Sofabaton U2, is very easy and intuitive to use once you get over the learning curve.